Jamisen McCrary's String Art Creation Earns Multiple Honors

Jamisen McCrary’s string art of a gear garnered him the following honors:

First Place at the Kentucky Senior Beta Club Convention.

Fifth Place at the National Beta Club Convention.

First Place Premium Blue Ribbon at the Kentucky State Fair for grades 7-9 in the Fiber Art 3D Sculpture category.

Quite the accolades for the 15 year-old son of Jeff and Jennifer McCrary.

"I felt pretty good,” Jamisen smiled. “It was like I had really achieved something with my own hands.”

Looking for ideas for a Senior Beta Club project, Jamisen ran across string art during an Internet search.

“I found some really neat string art things,” he said.

Jamisen did not see an image of the gear. He imagined it.

“It was just some shape I had in my head,” he said.

His attention to detail is impressive. Jamisen spent a little over a month designing and building (yes, building) his string art on prepared wood.

“Once I had the idea. I drew a rough sketch on paper,” he said. “It was complicated because of the pattern consideration and rationale. Then, there was the dimension, placing each nail, applying the string and checking depth.

Each nail is half an inch apart the prepared wood. Between affixing each nail and weaving every string, Jamisen said he questioned continuing the project on more than one occasion.

“It was hard working the string into the small spaces between nails,” he noted. “The repetition did get tiresome but the incentive was seeing it through.”

The string art is currently on display at Riverview Opportunity Center. Jamisen is a Bullitt Central High School sophomore who also attends the Career Readiness Center as well as aviation classes at the Bullitt County Area Technology Center.

During their freshmen year, Jamisen and CRC classmates, Preston Trundy, Kyle Callahan and Zachary Fust earned Second Place during Regional Competition of the Kentucky Lt. Governor Entrepreneurship Challenge and advanced to the Finals with The Helping Tree, PVC pipe arranged for the user to carry several pounds of bagged merchandise.

The group recently promoted their product to Chick-fil-A guest speakers.

Jamisen will enter Senior Beta Club competition again this spring following the theme of altogether remembering the past while building the future.

His idea is an hourglass shape separated with the top half representing the past and the bottom half the future.

“The top will have an antique, rustic look with 18 different pieces representing the 18 different states in Beta,” Jamisen explained. “The bottom will have a futuristic feel.”

He encouraged fellow students to join Senior Beta Club because it empowers creativity.

“It allows you to meet new people, have fun and leave your creative mark,” Jamisen said.

This news article has expired and is no longer viewable.

Thank you,

Bullitt County Public Schools1040 Highway 44 East Shepherdsville, KY 40165